Efficient Property Rights: The Contribution of Transaction Cost Economics (forthcoming)

This contribution presents and discusses the arguments underlying the idea that the superiority of private property is not absolute but actually depends on the circumstances prevailing in a given society at a certain time. This is done in two successive parts. In the first part, we compare open access understood as an extreme regime in which there are no property rights with regimes in which such rights exist. In the next one, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a regime of collective or community ownership vis-à-vis a regime of private ownership.